Court-Mandated Programs For Sex Crime Offenders

Interviewer: There are programs available, but which ones are they expected to partake in?

Eric Sachs: There are a lot of the courts on cases such as these. If it’s a prostitute herself or himself, hopefully they’ll go into the human trafficking court and they send them as part of the case to counseling to help them be cured if it was, or be rehabilitated from if they’re addicted to drugs if that is a scenario, as well as counseling to get these people away from this life. If they successfully complete whatever counseling or rehabilitation is out there, there’s even the chance that these cases could be dismissed or greatly reduced so they don’t affect the rest of their lives.

For the person who is the John or the Jane, the person who is patronizing the prostitute, they’ll also find themselves in human trafficking court or in the regular criminal court, and depending on that individual circumstance, some programs through counseling, whether it’s for a sex addiction or a drug addiction as to what brought that person into the prostitution or to patronize the prostitute. A lot of the programs are available to cure that addiction, so they would no longer have that compulsion, as it were, to patronize a prostitute. If they’re married, you’re going to certainly need some family counseling and all of these programs would be available through the court system to help get a good satisfaction to the criminal case.

Public Exposure of Criminal Record

Interviewer: How public could become for someone? Will friends and family find out?

Eric Sachs: It’s always public record. Friends and families can find out, but like every other crime it’s not usually in the big newspaper. Each local community tends to make mention of crimes or arrests that were committed within their little community. If somebody’s arrested for prostitution in the local area, it may show up in the local newspaper. It would probably show up on the Internet. There are sites that report all the arrests and convictions of people on their particular site. Then of course you run the risk, like it happened here in Nassau, where the district attorney made a sting and she wanted to target the Johns for prostitution and that made national news. Some of my clients end up in the local newspaper, but then they were in the national newspaper and on national television for this.

Again, a crime that most people would think is not a big deal can absolutely ruin everybody’s lives involved.

Interviewer: What would that mean to someone’s employment?

Eric Sachs: I guess it would depend on the employer as to what they feel about it. If somebody is convicted of being a prostitute or patronizing a prostitute, it’s a crime, so depending on for whom you work, once you’re convicted of a crime, depending on the restrictions (whether it’s a misdemeanor or it’s a felony), it could cost you your job. If your employer doesn’t have any restrictions regarding a criminal record, your employer still may not want you to work for them anymore because now people see what you’ve been convicted of and it creates an embarrassment for the employer. You certainly stand the risk of losing maybe not your driver’s license, but you could certainly lose a license to be in any kind of field, if that’s a restriction. You could absolutely lose your job and it may become more difficult to get another job, because in a job application you may have to answer, “Have you ever been convicted of a crime?” and the answer would have to be yes, and sometimes that can be embarrassing to tell what the crime was.

Interviewer: How does it appear on someone’s record if someone is convicted? Does it say, “soliciting a prostitute?”

Eric Sachs: It will. Yes, it’ll show the date of the arrest and what the arrest was for and it’ll show the ultimate conviction and what the conviction was for. It could show anything from patronizing a prostitute to promoting prostitution to compelling prostitution to sex trafficking or even permitting prostitution. Again, depending on where you are in life, any kind of criminal record becomes an issue and then of course if anybody’s reviewing it, it depends on what the reviewer thinks when they see these kinds of cases as to the kind of person you are and whether they want you working for them or not.